Page 106 - Beyond Compare Christie's Hong Kong RU WARE .pdf

BEYOND COMPARE: A Thousand Years of the Literati Aesthetic

“ Eastward the Great River flows, carrying away those great souls of the past. The ancient fort
to the west, they say, is the Red Cliff where Duke Zhou of the Three Kingdoms had his great
victory. Rocks pierce the sky, and the crashing waves toss up great plumes of foam like snow.
This great scene, like a painting, was once a stage for many great heroes.”

- Su Shi, Remembrance at the Red Cliff

hou Chunya’s Tree Series (Lot 8010) dates from 1993. At that time, following
Zhis return to China from Germany in 1989, he engaged in an intensive study
of works by Chinese literati, or scholar-painters, and their free, impressionistic style. The
series of works that resulted blends the rough freedom of German Neo-Expressionist lines
with deep-toned, dark colours to produce an aesthetic with great inner power. Zhou lays
down swift, streaky brushstrokes in thick, heavy oils, while beautiful, multi-coloured hues
storm across the canvas to suggest the outlines of rocks and woods, human forms, Chinese
script, or trees on the mountainside. However, the Tree Series does not simply depict
natural scenes. In an illusory space crowded with images, these works illustrate the dictums
of Huang Buzhi that “observing the object, you must abandon it,” and “it’s all in the
idea, not in the forms.” That is, in painting, rather than shaping the form, it is conveying
the spirit that is the ultimate goal. Chinese landscape painters, unlike their Western
counterparts, did not depict every detail of the scenic panorama, believing that outer form
is surface only, and that persons of superior understanding should be able to perceive
their real essence. Tree Series challenges our perceptions with its non-natural forms, and its
intense visual impact urges viewer to consider the essence of things expressed through this
moody, illusory piece.

A Stone, and the Vault of Heaven
“Painting, I say, is the great method by which we capture all the changes under heaven.
The spirit of mountain ranges and rivers, the shaping of nature over great spans of time,
Lot 8010 Detail ൐㒴
the natural flow of Yin and Yang; to pick up the brush, and with it to paint all the things
in nature, is how I cultivate my own spirit.” – Shi Tao

Much of the spiritual culture of traditional China resides in the concept of “natural
creation”. Every mountain and stone, each blade of grass and each tree, was seen as a work
produced by nature, and therefore a symbol of its spiritual power. Zhou produced his Rock
Series after studying the paintings of the earlier Chinese literati, works which ranged from
observations of his own self to the boundless universe; that series represented the world
in miniature, as well as “the universe in a grain of sand.” Speaking of the Song Dynasty’s
Su Shi and his painting Wood and Rock (Lot 8008), Mi Fu wrote, “As Su Shi paints this
withered tree, its trunk and branches have countless twists and turns. The texture strokes
in the rocks are strange and extraordinary, like the complex twists and turns within his
heart.” And though Zhou Chunya paints contemporary landscapes, that outlook does not
restrict his ability to express the scholar-painter’s character. With his precise and nimble
grasp of texture, feel, and structure, Zhou digs deep to portray the organic life of the inner
spirit. Among all the products of ancient or modern times, East or West, Zhou Chunya’s
achievement was the creation of a unique and exceptional aesthetic all his own.

fig. 1 Georg Baselitz, Still life, 1976-77,
Museum of Modern Art, New York
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Zhou Chunya in his studio, ݙᒯ⩒ X
Artist / Photo: © Zhou Chunya
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